Chapter 1 The Decision

Everyone: "???"

Chen Xiaomeng froze for a few seconds, her pupils suddenly contracting. "Hao Shuai, I... I'm going to kill you!!"

The previously formal scene instantly descended into chaos, but fortunately, the final decision had been made.

Early tomorrow morning, everyone would follow the village chief and his group to their destination – Xiaoshijian Village.

Now that the decision was made, Pei Qian and the others, though unwilling, accepted the result. Today's mission was over.

The night was already deep. Now was the time to rest well and prepare for tomorrow's long journey.

The hardship of several hours on mountain roads was something people living in cities could not comprehend, especially for people like Pei Qian and Ben Fu.

No one on the mission knew if they would live to see tomorrow, so unnecessary small talk was omitted. Zhou Rong was clearly in good spirits because his suggestion had been adopted, and he began to introduce where everyone would be sleeping that night.

According to him, the innkeeper had already prepared four rooms for them.

One room was on the third floor, and the other three were on the second floor.

His spawn point was a room on the second floor. He opened his eyes on the bed to see the ceiling.

He was in room 208.

Rooms 207 and 209, right next to 208, were also their rooms. The innkeeper's wife had already given him the keys, and he had them all.

But the problem now was that there were eight of them – five men and three women.

Clearly, two people of the opposite sex would have to share a room.

But...

Everyone's eyes unconsciously drifted towards Jiang Cheng and Chen Xiaomeng.

The relationship between these two was truly intriguing. According to Jiang Cheng, they not only knew each other, but also had a history.

Judging from their names, there was definitely something going on.

But the key was... in nightmares, it was common for people to hide their relationships and act like strangers. It was rare for people to openly acknowledge their relationship like this.

This made everyone suspicious.

Jiang Cheng seemed indifferent, but Chen Xiaomeng surprisingly didn't object and agreed.

However, she proactively requested the room on the third floor.

The others breathed a sigh of relief. The room on the third floor was isolated and who knew what might happen there. Although they hadn't reached Xiaoshijian Village yet, everyone had unconsciously become more vigilant.

The room assignments were complete.

Zhou Rong would stay in his room, 208, with Jiang Zhongyi.

Ben Fu and Pei Qian, who had no particular preference, would share a room, 207.

The remaining two women, Li Lu and Yu Man, would share room 209.

Jiang Cheng and Chen Xiaomeng would stay on the third floor, in 307.

Directly above Ben Fu and Pei Qian.

Opening the door, the room's facilities were quite old. There were even patches on the sheets, but fortunately, it was very clean.

A broken wooden table was spotless, indicating that the innkeeper cleaned it often.

As soon as Jiang Cheng entered the room, he unabashedly threw himself on the bed, wriggled around for a while, struck a strange pose, turned his head, gave Chen Xiaomeng, whose face was almost dark with anger, a flirtatious wink, and shyly asked, "Do you want to wash first, or should I?"

Chen Xiaomeng's goal seemed to have been achieved, so she wasn't in a hurry. She looked at Jiang Cheng like he was a dead man. After a long silence, she said coldly, "Where is it?"

Jiang Cheng widened his eyes in feigned surprise. "Where is what?"

"The thing you stole from me!"

"That newspaper?" Jiang Cheng said, as if recalling something, smacking his lips. "But didn't you give it to me? You thought I was good-looking and coveted my body, but because time was tight, we couldn't have a deeper connection, so you gave me the newspaper as a testament to your admiration for me..."

His eyes lit up, and he excitedly patted the bed, saying, "Come on! Your chance is here! Don't miss this opportunity!"

"You bastard!"

Chen Xiaomeng was almost fainted by Jiang Cheng's rogue face. She had previously picked up a hemp rope downstairs, probably used to tie up pigs and cattle.

She had roughly tested it and felt that it would be no problem to strangle Jiang Cheng with it.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she pulled out the hemp rope, Jiang Cheng cowered. He stared at the hemp rope, instantly sat up from the bed, straightened his clothes, and looked very gentlemanly.

It had to be said that, with the dim light in the room, Jiang Cheng's half-exposed profile did look somewhat handsome.

"Don't get violent," Jiang Cheng said pitifully, "I'll listen to you tonight, okay?"

"Hand over the newspaper!"

Chen Xiaomeng lowered her voice. She didn't want to make too much noise, after all, the people downstairs were all shrewd. If they knew she had something like that in her possession, things would become troublesome.

As for Jiang Cheng after handing over the thing, she naturally didn't plan to let him off. But she didn't need to do it herself. Killing teammates in a mission would trigger something terrible.

She had already decided to use the hand of the ghost to get rid of Jiang Cheng.

This way, it wouldn't trigger the mission's revenge mechanism, and she could permanently remove this hateful person.

This person looked harmless, but Chen Xiaomeng, who had gone through a mission with him, knew that he was extremely cunning, especially good at playing dumb to deceive others. If it hadn't been for him stirring things up during the last mission, her gains would have been greater.

"I originally planned to return the newspaper to you," Jiang Cheng said, shrinking his body and looking pitiful, "but it's not in my hands now. It was snatched away."

Chen Xiaomeng frowned slightly. "Snatched away?"

"By a fat man," Jiang Cheng immediately said, pointing the finger. "It's that fat man who didn't die in the last mission. I don't know how he found my house, but he found it anyway, and then he threatened me to give him the newspaper."

After a pause, Jiang Cheng seemed to recall the miserable scene at the time, and his whole body trembled slightly with fear. "I wouldn't give it to him, and then he hit me, hit me really hard! I had no choice but to give him the newspaper."

After speaking, Jiang Cheng looked at Chen Xiaomeng, his eyes full of concern. He opened his mouth and whispered a reminder, "If you encounter him next time, you have to be careful. He's really powerful!" He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, "It's best to kill him directly, don't give him a chance to react!"

Chen Xiaomeng thought for a moment, and couldn't help but feel a little surprised.

In her memory, that fat man was dull and clumsy, and also very timid. Besides his cooking skills and rare agility attribute, he didn't seem to have any other abilities.

Could he... be that powerful?

But according to her observation, Jiang Cheng's expression was very sincere when he said these words, and he didn't seem to be lying.

Moreover... she bit her lip. In her long memories, were there few people in nightmares who played dumb to deceive others?

Most importantly, it had only been three days since the last mission.

During the last mission, she had already used her own methods to verify that this person calling himself Hao Shuai was indeed a newbie. She didn't believe that in just three days, he could understand the newspaper's function and how to use it.

So, she judged that what he said was likely true.